How to use technology was taught to me in various, but entirely unhelpful ways throughout my growing-up years.

My parent’s approach to the matter was something along the lines of: “scare the kids off the internet and they’ll be safe.” (Cyber Safety 101, woohoo.)

When put that way, clearly this wasn’t a very helpful thing. One has to understand, of course, that my parents only wanted the best for me. They were using the only approach they knew how. They themselves had been scared off the internet – we humans are interesting creatures that fear what we don’t understand.

I did learn at least one helpful thing from my parents. Despite the fact that scaring children off the internet a) doesn’t work and b) isn’t a helpful approach, a general sense of caution around technology and the internet was a good thing engrained in me by my parents.

Kids use the internet all the time. I did. And they know more about it than their parents. I did. But just because kids know a lot about the internet doesn’t mean they know how to use it safely. Because of this, that general sense of caution was really helpful.

In school, we were taught about cyberbullying and what to do if it happened to us. We used our computer lab a lot, spending a lot of time on the Internet for research and projects. We also spent a lot of time on the school laptops and iPads. Whether we were making presentations, doing Kahoots, writing assignments, or playing CoolMathGames – we were learning how to use the technology in an academic context, but not necessarily how to use it safely or how to use it in our personal lives.

I did most of my real learning about technology use on my own. I learned things from experience (prime example: once, going into grade 9, I lost all of the data on my laptop because it got hacked).

The older I got, the more I stayed away from new things. I didn’t want to keep up with all of the new developments in technology. What I had was working for me, and that was good enough.

I still hold as close to that as I can. Of course, what is required of me in terms of technology use is changing almost as much as the technology is. I find myself continuously multiple steps behind, but not far enough to be left behind by the younger generation. My aim is that it stays this way for my own personal technology use.

I think the best approach for teachers would be to openly discuss new technology and social media that their students are using. They should include a section in (maybe) health class about safe technology use. Ribble’s Nine Elements of digital citizenship are a great start.